rivka

The phone rang at 10 to 1, just as I was packing up to go over to the clinic for the afternoon shift. It was Stacey, our new graduate student, who was just finishing her first solo shift running subjects.

"Hey, Stacey, how's it going?"

"Pretty good, but, um. There's a guy here for the study, but on his arms he has what looks like open sores."

"Okay. Our policy is that if people have open sores on their arms, they can't do psychophysiology."

"I know. He says they're really old marks that have been there for years, but they look like open sores to me."

"Well, it's your decision, not his. The client might be motivated by the ten dollars, you know?"

"I know. What do you want me to do?"

I sighed. "Tell you what. I'm on my way over to the clinic right now, so why don't you ask him to wait. I'll look at the sores, and then decide."

I spent a fair amount of time fleshing out this story and writing more of it, and then decided that it was frankly just too gross for LJ. And so I'll leave it at this: boy, I'll tell you, the things I never expected to do with my Ph.D...